Good Looking Charts?

[bryanmcn]

Does anyone have any canadian picks with good looking charts? I can't short inside my RSP so they have to be bullish. They can't be thinly traded and preferably over $5

I presently like SSP's  picks of WN.to and NWF/UN.to

Any charts please?

[bryanmcn]

I found CFP.to

Looks like a solid recovery with good upward momentum.

[garilou]

I like WN too. I broke it's last resistance today (well Monday).
CFP looks nice too, somewhat overbought today (Oh I guess I have really turned in a day trader!)And maybe not for a long run: so many stocks are undervalued (is this "fundamentals?") I am afraid others will come back.

And an older pick from SSP, ATA seems to be coming to life again, at least for the short and maybe intermediate term.
And it got back over your $5.00 minimum.

But I am the opposite as you: I feel it's too early to risk anything yet in my RRSP, so I can only short Canadian stocks (still have a couple in my drawers) or buy or short US stocks. But I might go on a small ATA position and see how it does.

I will also keep an eye on Cangene (CNJ). Not quite yet up to your $5.00 limit, but it could be soon. Maybe also not in your volume requirements.

Something funny happened to me with this stock 10 days ago: I was long on it, but with what you know, it got pulled down with the whole market. So I put a stop and a sell order, when the stop triggered, I took note and forgot about the sell order. Although both orders were pretty far apart, the market was so volatile, that the sell order was executed too! So I was short in my RRSP for a few days until I noticed it, and I put a note to call my broker, but they called me first!
In between it had gone up again... but it had become a (unwanted) short! so I lost an extra $100.00! (As a bonus, they bought it back without commission  )

All this if you are brave enough to jump back in.

But who am I to discuss those things with you: just trying to keep this forum alive, I guess, unless people appreciate the porn posts, but like everything in that kind of interest, look at it privately, and not don't talk about it 
As for the charts...I guess you can find them on your own
Louise

[bryanmcn]

Feb 7, 2009
Hi All
Anyone having any success out there? I notice that in a flat market SSP tends to pick some winners. SSP's recent adds of CG and IMG are both gold plays. I own some HGU.
Anyone have any other stocks with good charts?

[DCA]

My non-SSP trades lately have been mostly CSH.UN and CSF.

CSH.UN was paying at 18% when I picked it up and is still below book.

Times are tough and I expect CSF to do well.  ('Tis my equivalent of buying MCD during a recession.)

D

[DCA]

Inside SSP picks - SMF is looking good.

D

[garilou]

Hi DCA,

Yes SMF chart looks good, maybe a little oversold for the moment.
But at last, a cheap stock with volume!
But another gold stock in SSP portfolios!
I find this makes us very dependent from the Gold that has had a very good up ride, but is also in "overbought territory" at least on the short term, with volumes decreasing.
Lots of analysts send the gold over $1000.00 again, (remember when they sent the Oil at $200.00?) but it closed Friday at 914.00, and (at the moment when I write this (Data retrieved at Feb 09 05:03:54 GMT • All quotes are in Greenwich Mean Time • Data provided by eSignal ) all contracts till Aug. 2009 are down between 7.5 to 9.6.
Since Stocks (and mosly gold stocks) tend to over react to gold prices, in both directions, I am not quite sure.
In the long term probably... but who wants to bet on long term those days.

CSH.UN might also look somewhat overbought, but seems very promising not only for it's price below book (this is often misleading), but for it's past growth and sure it's dividend!... and the aging baby boomers :-)

You write:
"I expect CSF to do well "
I suppose this is not based on the "good looking chart" which does not look too good to me right now.

What do you mean by "'Tis my equivalent of buying MCD during a recession "?

MCD is not a very hot BUY in the moment. But yes I guess it should be a good bet.
But if I had to choose, I'd go for MCD more then for CSF.

Louise

[DCA]

The best time to buy a stock with a good looking chart is before the chart starts looking good.

CSF was based on reading through annual and quaterly reports.  My comment on MCD was that it is a stock that is typically touted to be a good buy when people are losing their jobs and the sky is raining brokerage house executives.  The theory here is that people whose household pay has been downsized will more likely frequent bottom feeding lenders.  Investing here is at least more ethical than investing in cluster bomb manufacturers. [although their stock is doing well right now too.])

D

[garilou]

Hi DCA,

The best time to buy a stock with a good looking chart is before the chart starts looking good.

This is one of the best things that I have learned on this forum!
Since I've read that, I've tried. Not easy.
How do you do it? I already spend so much time in searching.
I guess you have to go to the fundamentals? Bottom fishing is not always the best way, can be dangerous.
Do you pick them when they are in a flat part of their chart?

Louise

[DCA]

Hi Louise,

I use a charting program to filter for good fundamentals crossed with looking for technical indications of hold or sell.  Then I put my eyeballs on this list (usually around 25 stocks at a time).  What I am looking for is stocks that have been in a technical sell state for some time and is not justified by the fundamentals.  I then examine the company website and other sources of information.  I am looking for indications that the market is "wrong".

Since I am involved in engineering and manufacturing I tend to concentrate on those types of companies (stick to what you know) and can often get additional information by phoning up engineers or sales people at the company.  Even so I am wrong at least 60% of the time.

It is interesting to note that in the 40% of the time I am right close to 50% of those get bought out with a stock offer.

As for the shape of the chart, if I pick 'perfectly' the chart in retrospect shows a clear up trend from a few days after I bought.  Of course the reality is that they sometime linger or descend for some time and regretfully some are double mistakes.  I bought to early and then sold just before the buy out offer announced.

D

[garilou]

Hi DCA,
Sorry I did not reply earlier, I'm terribly busy right now, to the point that I got rid of almost all my stocks, shorts and longs, (and another one will probably get away on  Monday, with a terrible gain of... $50.00  ), because I do not think that the time has come back to "BUY and SLEEP", and the time to "SELL and SLEEP" is pretty much over.

I use a charting program to filter for good fundamentals crossed with looking for technical indications of hold or sell.

Is this a specific program?

I like your honesty of admitting that you are "wrong at least 60% of the time" . But I guess you are still in a good bracket.

...40% of the time I am right close to 50% of those get bought out with a stock offer

Other people experiences are always interesting. I often perceive the markets as huge anonymous crowds trying to beat me, and me trying to beat them: it's fun sometimes to hear that in that crowd, there are individuals like you and me, real persons, working their way through as best as they can.

I bought to early and then sold just before the buy out offer announced.

Oh gees, this has happened to me quite a few times: got stopped out, looked away for a few days, and there goes my stock up (or down depending on the type of position I had), and not necessarily because of a buy out offers.
But one can see that you look at the companies through your own professional eyes.

[If I concentrated in what I know best, I'd be very poor by now, because as they say, the best way to get millionaire with horses is to start with 10 million $, and a year after you are a millionaire :-) Only positive point: this has forced me to do, and understand, financial statements.
And there is not much either in what used to be my profession.]

But sure, with the economy we've had, lots of pretty good ones have been bought.
But sometimes between the buy offer (and the stock goes up), and the time for the real deal comes closer, the buyer it-self gets broke and the deal is off: good shorting opportunities!

I usually hate stops, but honestly, this week, they have saved a few earnings (I changed my trailing stops about 3 times per day), and also prevented too big losses: on one, I thought I had a terrible loss, had forgotten that I placed a stop for a week, (which I seldom do), and when I decided to take my loss, I noticed that I had been saved by that stop the day before.
For me it was the signal that I was going to get out for a while.

As for the cases when the market "is wrong", I shorted twice Harley Davidson that had one of the worst fundamentals I had ever seen. and no big prospect to recover anytime soon.
In the assets they wrote "receivable" about 5 times higher then the year before, but those where clearly "receivable" that would never be received...
Some say the market is never wrong... but who are we to "tell" the world?

The first time, I had a substantial gain, (when they had to cut their dividend by 70%!), but very soon I noticed how much that stock was artificially pushed up by huge interests. I kept checking it intraday, and each time there was a small drop, then came a big buy just enough to put it on the run up again.
So the second time, I lost about 70% of my first gain.

And there I have learned another lesson in the art of shorting: never short stocks that are so heavily held by the biggest mutual funds, especially if those funds hold at the same time huge amounts of Berkshire...

OK, enough chatting.

Louise

[bryanmcn]

Hi D
What stocks are you holding and / or looking at now?
Bryan

[DCA]

Hi Bryanmcm,

Apart from the two mentioned above I like FNX, BVF, and SIF.UN.

The first one has managed an 85% YTD return and the last two have a healthy div stream.

I must admit that for most of the year I have been concentrating on my company and mostly following SSP picks blindly.  (must remember the donation for all the hard work I am taking advantage of.)

I would hazard a guess that in the medium term future some niobium stocks would turn out to be very good picks.

D

[bryanmcn]

Thanks D
I have a couple of energy income trust units with high yield as well. FNX looks like it still has legs. Nice pick!
Bryan

[garilou]

Is it the egg or the hen?
Apart from copper that has started earlier, gold, uranium and energy stocks have been doing good in the recent days.
But they are linked to commodities that are all priced in USD.
If you look when gold and energy stocks have pretty suddenly found a new upward trend, you can see that it coincides pretty much to the moment when the USD started to take another down trend.

I also own an energy income trust that did not do to well but gave a very high dividend, and all of sudden it started to climb with no evident reason, (it's electricity and not oil or gas related).

Is it a sign that there is really new needs for those commodities?
Do people come back to gold again as a refuge?
Or is it simply so that they are cheaper because the USD goes down?

I guess this is pretty much a rhetorical question, but still.

At the end of good TSX up days, you often hear (or read) "The Canadian dollar went up because of oil and precious metals went up".
I do no buy that explanation too easily, because other currencies also went up, from countries that are not as rich as Canada is in gold, precious metals or energy.
They went up against the USD, and so did the CND.

Will this "international currency" for commodities or more generally for global trading, that we are hearing about, pushed forward by China and Russia ever become a reality?

What do you think?

Louise

PS. I guess I could have posted this in another forum, if we had one on commodities, but I guess no one objects too much about being slightly out of topic